“Disaster Has Arrived”

Regulatory pressure has always been absurd and misdirected in the automobile industry.  At some point, the laws of physics were going to say no more.  Recall we did originally transition form universal steam power to hydrocarbon systems over essentially decades, even with the obvious advantages.

It took massive investment to shift to the EV model and so far two decades.  Best solutions may well be still two more decades on.  I also agree that this was well worth doing.  If only for the universal advent of fresh air.

Yet robust hydrocarbon systems do have a continuing place simply because robust is possible today when it is truly needed.  So please just go away and let our markets do their thing.  This is now producing real damage.

What we know right now is that the EV protocol will displace at least a serious fraction of driven miles including a lot of heavy trucking.  It will be the best solution.  It is also true that some fraction will likely still need the built convenience of hydrocarbons.  just think logging trucks or bull dozers.

We are still depending on grid power distribution  and battery support.  so a universal solution is a mistake..

“Disaster Has Arrived”

By eric

-September 14, 2024

Just before Titanic hit the iceberg, the lookout screamed a warning – too late. The rest is history. Something similar is happening onboard the SS Stellantis.

Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram truck dealers all over America have signed an open letter warning parent company Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares about the “rapid degradation”of their brands, which is chiefly the result of these brands having had most of the models that sold (such as the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger) either taken off the market or altered in such a way – the way one alters a male dog – as to make them a harder sell. As in the case of the Ram trucks that used to offer V8 power that are now powered by turbocharged (and hybridized) sixes

Chrysler has been left to twist in the wind with nothing to sell except a minivan since the end of the 2023 model year – which is already almost two models years in the rearview. Are there even any Chrysler dealers left? They have been folded into Dodge/Ram/Jeep dealers as a kind of slow-fade into the inevitable oblivion. It’s an example of what the letter calls the “short term decision making” of corporate parent Stellantis. And Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

“For over two years now, the U.S. Stellantis National Dealer Council has been sounding this alarm to your US executive team, warning them that the course you had set for Stellantis was going to be a disaster in the long run . . . a disaster not just for us, but for everyone involved – and now that disaster has arrived,” reads the letter, in part.

Yup. It was about two years ago that the decision was taken by Stellantis that subsidiary brands such as Dodge and Chrysler would be shorn of their best-selling models because these were costing Stellantis – the parent company – too much in regulatory compliance costs. The Dodge Charger and its two-door sibling the Challenger, along with the closely related Chrysler 300 sedan sold well but each sale resulted in costs – to Stellantis – in the form of fines for noncompliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) which are basically federally mandated MPG minimums; these are now scheduled to rise to about 50 MPG and vehicles like the big (and heavy) and V8 powered especially Charger/Challenger/300 could never be “compliant” with that.

So – paradoxically – each sale of one of those models, which may have made money for the dealers, cost the parent company (Stellantis) money. There were also the losses associated with having to buy “carbon credits” – from Tesla, chiefly – as the price of making and selling vehicles like the Charger, Challenger, 300 and anythimg else with a V8 that have a too-big “carbon footprint.”

Tavares has vowed to arrange things so that Stellantis would not have to pay for what Dodge/Chrysler – and Jeep and Ram – were selling. That it would be “carbon neutral” in just a few years from now.

So, no more Charger, Challenger or 300. And also no more V8 for Jeeps and Ram trucks, either. But the Hemi V8 was kind of like the meat in a hamburger. Take that away and what’s left isn’t hamburger anymore.

And good luck trying to sell that to people who want hamburger – and not something else. Or something less.

Like what Dodge is left trying to sell right now, which is a reskinned Fiat (another brand that is part of the Stellantis combine) crossover badged as the “Dodge” Hornet, which debuted last year as the replacement for the Charger/Challenger. It hasn’t gone over well with Dodge buyers – just over 9,300 Hornets were sold in all of 2023 – and so it’s become a “disaster” for Dodge dealers, who currently have not much else to sell.

It’s analogous to why GM decided to cut bait as regards its former Pontiac and Oldsmobile divisions, which were once among GM’s best selling divisions. But the compliance costs of selling Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles that actually were those things – powered by Pontiac and Oldsmobile-built engines – were too high and so they were shorn of their brand-specific engines (this was back in the ’80s) which led to the end for Pontiac and Oldsmobile.

This is why the Charger and Challenger and 300 were ended – in the manner of a summary execution rather than a lobotomy. The Hemi V8 had to go – in order to staunch the bleed of compliance costs – and once the Hemi was gone, the Charger, Challenger and 300 couldn’t stay.

Stellantis pins its hopes for the survival of the Dodge brand on a still-not-yet-here electric/partially electric Charger but the market for electric things is about as hot as the market for meatless “hamburgers.” It hopes the new Hurricane inline six – which is another compliance engine – will be enough to get enough buyers to forget about the V8s that used to be available in Ram trucks and Jeep vehicles like the Wrangler and Cherokee.

So far, those hopes have not been realized, which is why it’s looking pretty hopeless for brands such as Dodge and also Jeep and Ram. Hope for Chrysler is all-but-gone.

It seems likely that Stellantis is going to cut bait – probably no later than the end of next year – if the the Chrysler, Dodge and (yes) Jeep and Ram brands aren’t generating enough money for the corporation – and real soon.

Look how many recently healthy brands – including VW – are all-of-a-sudden looking a lot like the Titanic did about an hour after it hit the iceberg. By then, everyone on board began to understand what was inevitable.

A similar understanding appears to be dawning once again.